


Kloktober, Oct. 4th: Villains or Family

by Morpheus626



Series: Lee's Kloktober 2020 [4]
Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M, Trans Pickles the Drummer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26807263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: I went with both for this day’s fic. How? You’ll see.Quick synopsis: Pickles goes home, and this time, it should be different.Should be.More Skwisgaar/Pickles in this because I gave myself an itch for it with the end of yesterday’s Kloktober fic, and this fic actually does make mention of my fic from Oct. 3rd, so if you haven’t read that one first, not a bad idea. Maybe not one hundred percent necessary, but it makes the reference clearer!Also Trans!Pickles because I haven’t gotten to indulge that headcanon in ages.TW for emotional familial abuse, mentions of casual transphobia, general neglect from family.
Relationships: Pickles the Drummer/Skwisgaar Skwigelf
Series: Lee's Kloktober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948486
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Kloktober, Oct. 4th: Villains or Family

“It’s fine, Nathan,” Pickles says, but it isn’t fine. 

His family has pulled some bullshit before, but this tops the charts. 

They had called, a family emergency. Come right away. In tears, please think of us, put aside any past hurts and we’ll do the same for what you’ve done to us. 

So he had rushed, with Charles’ help, to get a plane ready, their own personal red eye flight just for him. 

He’d barely managed to pack anything, and it consisted mostly of things he only wore back at home. Thick hoodies and sweatpants. Dark jeans and heavy boots. A few baseball caps and beanies. 

He was sick of being recognized back there. But this stuff could help prevent it, sometimes. Or at least, if anyone thought they recognized him, they’d have to do a double take, couldn’t call out the name he hadn’t responded to for years off hand like they did whenever he showed up without trying to cover himself up as much as possible. 

“Doesn’t sound fine,” Nathan says. “We can come out there-” 

“No!” Pickles can hear that he says it too quickly. “I’m okay. I’ll be back in a few days.” 

He hangs up and shoves his phone back in his pocket before he can consider calling Nathan back, begging him to send a plane to get him. 

They might still be here. He’s checked his parents house three times over, but maybe they’re just out right now. 

He’s checked the hospitals too. And anywhere else he can think of for that matter, including the grocery and big box stores. 

But if they’re still anywhere in town, then he’s missed them. 

It almost stings more, that his parents didn’t at least change the locks. Had they done that, he would have turned around and gone home right away. Certainly wouldn’t have gone wandering around town in the heavy snow, falling lightly now, amber under the streetlight he smokes by. 

His mother doesn’t like the smell of smoke in the house. 

Is it just that they wanted to fuck with him? Were they even in town when they had called? Was there actually something wrong, and they had missed telling him a vital update? 

He beats his brain against the inside of his skull for not asking more questions. He didn’t even ask what the emergency was about. He knows better. 

He should know better. 

He stamps his joint out in the snow and starts to head inside. 

Then stops. The backyard, small as it is, beckons. 

He trudges back into it, ignoring the snow as it works its way into the holes in the bottom of his boots. 

In the dark, in the fenced-in backyard, he can pretend he’s somewhere else. 

Not necessarily other than Wisconsin. But a different version of it. 

A version where he didn’t leave, because he didn’t feel he had to. Where no one stumbled over calling him ‘Molly’s little gi-child’, or asked when he would grow his hair back out so it could be braided the way his mother had done it when he was in preschool. 

Where this is his house. He’s earned it, who knows how, but it’s his. He can come and lay out in the backyard, in the cold snow, like this, whenever he pleases. He’s alone, but in this version, it doesn’t matter. Somehow the loneliness never touches him, doesn’t even make him blink.

He talks to no one, and no one talks to him, and he pays for the mortgage some way or another, and eventually he dies alone in the living room in an armchair, covered by a blanket. 

It’s peaceful. 

He knows time hasn’t paused, since he flopped into the snow. But it feels like it could have, and that’s close enough. 

“What ams yous doing?” 

He jumps at Skwisgaar’s voice, and rolls over to see him standing at the gate of the backyard fence. 

“I’m...” he hesitates. 

Before he can figure out what he wants to say next, Skwisgaar is over the low gate with a quiet grunt as he lands in the snow. 

He trods over, somehow graceful despite the wet, heavy snow clinging to his boots, and lays down next to Pickles. 

“They amn’ts here, ams they?” 

He hates the tears, hates that they dare show up at all. Hasn’t he cried enough over their bullshit? “No. I don’t know where they are.” 

“Haves they called?” 

“No.” 

“Haves you called them?” 

“No,” Pickles admits. “Don’t wanna know what they’ll say when they answer. If they answer.” 

“Let’s me does it then,” Skwisgaar says, and pulls his phone out from the pocket of his jeans. 

He puts it on speaker, holds it between them as it rings. 

And rings.

And rings.

And rings. 

They try Molly, Seth, Amber, Calvert. 

It’s the same every time. 

“They knew,” Pickles mumbles as Skwisgaar puts his phone away. “They knew I’d still come out here. They’re probably on fuckin’ vacation with Seth or something. They did it just to fuck with me, I know it.” 

He can see the conflict on Skwisgaar’s face. Can guess what Skwisgaar wants to say, to be comforting, compared with what they both know the truth is. 

“That mights be true,” he says, finally. “But then yous can go. Comes back home.” 

He sits up, and drops his face into his knees. “I don’t want to go. But I don’t want to stay here. Don’t wanna be here when they get back. I just wanna be in this, right now, back here.” 

Skwisgaar nods. “I doubts they’ll be backs tonights. Wes can stays out here.” 

“You ain’t cold?” 

Skwisgaar shrugs. “Been colder.” 

They’ve edged around this. Whatever it is, between them. Neither dipping in too far to it, content to dance around the lines. 

He crosses one now, and lays back, rolling over to rest his head on Skwisgaar’s chest. 

Skwisgaar’s arm wraps around him, holds him close. Doesn’t move or waver as he sobs, but Skwisgaar’s other hand does reach over to wipe the tears from his eyes, ever so gently. 

“I gots a hotels room,” Skwisgaar says. “Wes can go there, whenevers you ams ready. Or wes can stays here, if you wants.” 

“You don’t have to stay with me,” Pickles gasps out in between another set of sobs. “I know Nathan-” 

“He didn’t sends me,” Skwisgaar interrupts. “I overhears him on the phone. Told Charles to gets me a plane, to tells the others I was goings to meets up with some old ladies or something.” 

“We said this didn’t have to be a thing,” Pickles says. 

“I knows,” Skwisgaar sighs. “But...I sorts of wants it...to bes a thing. If you does too.” 

That thought has been running laps through his mind since their failed cruise trip, since the first night they spent together that was sharp and furious but still far more romantic than any random hook-up, like they had been pretending it was. 

He rolls over onto Skwisgaar, the snow soaking through his jeans as he straddles him, and kisses him, hard. 

He worries, as they break apart, that it wasn’t answer enough. He should be more clear, say it plainly-

Skwisgaar cradles his face gently, and kisses him back. Softly, sweetly, with a tiny moan on the end of it. His thumb brushes across Pickles’ cheek, and he realizes he’s answered enough, perfectly. 

“Wants to go fucks in your parent’s beds?” Skwisgaar asks. “Makes them regrets that theys dids this, and calls you heres only to be horribles?” 

Pickles laughs and nods. “Then the hotel? We can get room service and watch whatever crappy horror movie we can find?” 

Skwisgaar smiles. “Yeah. Can’ts be scareds if I watch one with you.” 

There will be explaining to do, back at home. They’re A Thing now, and the rest of the guys will have questions. 

But he’s okay with questions. He’s okay with all of it, with moving out of this moment that he had hoped he would somehow be frozen in. 

So long as Skwisgaar is with him. 


End file.
